The Universe of Paper
by xPeppermint
Summary: After failing to save the earth from destruction The Doctor crosses his own timeline and goes back for another try, managing in the meantime to save the one girl who wasn't meant to be saved. This story sees him in his final incarnation, with an unwilling companion, and in a universe where he doesn't technically exist. (Post-Ponds, Pre-Clara).
1. Prequel

(**Author's Note**: Hello, everybody! I just wanted to give some background on this story. This is a project that I'm starting for Camp NaNoWriMo, which begins on Monday. My dream is to someday write for television, and in order to do that I have to be comfortable with writing material that I did not come up with myself. That's why I decided to spend the month writing fanfiction. I'm going to try and bring my own ideas to Doctor Who without deviating too much from what the show is all about. I appreciate any and all reviews, and I really hope that you enjoy my story! I'm not technically supposed to begin until Monday, so I'm going to call this chapter a prequel. I'm such a rebel, aren't I? ~ Pepper.)

Once upon a time in a town called London, there lived a man. Except he didn't actually live there; he traveled a lot and every once in a while he'd just sort of show up in London with no prior notice. Anyway. This man was in London on this particular day, which is the same day in which our story begins. Except it wasn't daytime at all when he came; actually it was about seven o'clock, which technically is the evening. Or the night, if you prefer. But the point is that The Doctor was in London on this particular night (or evening), and that is where our story starts. For the record, it started with a crash. Just as the man had arrived with no prior notice, a big blue box fell from the sky and landed right in the middle of a field with no warning whatsoever. And it's a good thing that no one was in the field, because they surely would have had quite a shock if they had been there to see it. Anyway. A middle aged man staggered out of the big blue box, scratching his head as he mumbled something about eyebrows and his legs being wobbly. He was wearing a suit that looked far too big for him and his black bow tie was crooked. Just to remind you, no one was around to hear him speak. But if they had been, it's very likely that they would have heard him say this:

"That is absolutely, positively, undeniably, the _last _time that I save the earth from total destruction. It's so commonplace anymore that they don't at all appreciate the things I do for them. So that's that."

Of course The Doctor didn't mean this, but he didn't know that at the time. What he did know was that the TARDIS had crashed in the middle of a field somewhere in London, and she must have been damaged upon impact. Her readings indicated that there was not a single lifeform on this planet, yet there he stood on two wobbly legs, very much alive. At least, he thought he was alive. The Doctor placed a hand over his chest and nodded with satisfaction when he felt the rhythm of two hearts beating within his chest. Yes, he was alive. And he could feel the Earth turning beneath his feet, hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour. And Big Ben's mighty face announced to the world that it was seven o'clock, and all of the city was lit up. The Doctor walked until he came upon a street, and sure enough there were people all about him. They were talking on mobile phones, shopping, and eating. Doing the things that all normal humans do. And yet, as far as his TARDIS was concerned, they did not exist.

As far as his TARDIS was concerned, neither did he.


	2. Men From Mars

Once upon a time in a town called London, there lived a girl. Her name was Autumn Angela Dever and she was perfectly average in every possible way. She was also extraordinary, but she wouldn't realize that for a while. Anyway. Autumn loved routines, and our story begins right when she was in the middle of one. This particular routine was called "reading the daily paper and having tea," and it was probably her favourite. There was nothing more relaxing than sipping some Earl Grey and seeing what was going on in the world. Unless the headlines said something to the effect of "Men From Mars Invade Planet Earth". Which, on the morning in which our story takes place, they did.

Wait, what?

Autumn squinted her eyes and scrambled to grab her reading glasses. The scrambling was due to the fact that they weren't actually on the table beside her, as she would have expected, but already on her face. She read on with the eyes of a skeptic (she wasn't falling for it this time, Lou-Ann!), and even went so far as to check the paper for any other sign that this was another joke orchestrated by one of her co-workers. There were none. Autumn checked the date, just to be sure. It wasn't April 1st- far from it, actually. And even if it had been, she thought, would a paper with a reputation to uphold really publish a joke article? No, it wouldn't. So it was true, then. The Martians had returned, back for revenge after they failed to take over Earth in the late 19th century. It should be pointed out, by the way, that Autumn could very well have gained all this information by simply looking out her window. There was a giant metal tripod looming in the distance, gleaming in the early morning sun and striking fear into Autumn's heart when she finally did wake up and take a look outside. She concluded that it had to be quite far away since she could see it in its entirety- but what's this now?! Thick black smoke was forming in the corners of her kitchen, curling its way inward. It took mere seconds to fill the room, and Autumn was coughing and heaving before she even had time to wonder what was going on. Also, she was feeling light-headed...

And she was out. The next thing she knew she was being shaken violently, and her head kept on hitting something hard. "Hey!" She called out, her voice hoarse and cracking as though she'd just woken up from a four hour "nap" in the middle of the day after staying up all night to watch re-runs of Earth's Unexplainable Mysteries. She tried again, "Stop that!" This was followed by a moan as her head smashed against the ground for the last time.

"Sorry!" The voice that was speaking belonged to a man, but she couldn't see anyone. Actually... Autumn wasn't entirely sure _what_ she was seeing. By this point she'd stood up and started to look around at her new surroundings. She was in a round room that was all lit up and blue in color. In the center there was some sort of spinning mechanism with strange designs all around it, and directly beneath that was some sort of console with lights and levers and buttons and little shiny bits. (Oh, how she loved little shiny bits!) She was just about to open her mouth to ask where she was when the man spoke again. "I just had to make sure you were awake! I need to ask you something!"

"Oh, I'd like to ask you some things too!" She was yelling. Why was she yelling? He had been yelling. But why had he been yelling? It suddenly occured to her that it was very loud in this strange room. There was a sort of grating, whirring noise that was filling up the whole space. Autumn once again opened her mouth to ask a question, but she was once again stopped when the man spoke. This time he showed himself, a little too closely. He was standing right in front of her face, only inches away.

"Hello!" He said, and then ran off to the big spinning... _thingy _in the center of the room. "I'm The Doctor, this is my TARDIS- she's a beautiful thing, isn't she? She's a time machine, able to travel anywhere in time and space. Also, she's dimensionally transcendental, so-"

"She's bigger on the inside?" Autumn flashed a knowing grin, and regretted it immediately. The man- The Doctor- looked anything but pleased. Actually, he looked downright grumpy. She frowned. "Sorry. Please, continue."

"...She's bigger on the inside. How did you know that, anyway?" The Doctor had been peeking at her from around the console, but now he came around and stood in full view of her. "Most of the time they want to run back outside and see it for themselves. I mean, it's good that you didn't do that because we don't really have time for it- Oh! And we're airborne. But still, you could look a little more impressed."

"Sorry. It's just, there were Martians about to wipe out the world for the second time. Considering that science has come that far, it isn't really a stretch that a whole dimension could be contained inside of, erm, something. (Autumn had yet to see the exterior of the vessel she was currently riding in.) And time travel? I've known that was possible for ages. Neutrinos may not travel faster than the speed of light, but it's only a matter of time before we discover something that can." Autumn frowned. She remembered her little nerdy heart being broken when scientists discovered a flaw in the results of the experiment which observed the particles traveling faster than lightspeed. Her hopes of having tea with Nikola Tesla had been dashed, and it took weeks for her to accept it and move on. Yet, here she was in a time machine. And now that she thought about it, she had a whole new batch of questions that she wanted to her ask host. They were burning inside of her, wanting very desperately to get out. But which one should she ask first? Autumn took a deep breath, deciding to leave it to chance. Whichever one came out, came out. Like word vomit. "You have no eyebrows."

"You're supposed to be asking questions and looking impressed!" The Doctor snapped, and Autumn jumped. He was looking a lot more grumpy now than he was before, and she really felt bad about blurting out the first thing that had come to her mind. It was really stupid. But worse than that, it seemed to really upset him- probably more than it should have. Autumn took a minute or two to look at The Doctor, to simply stare at him and take in his appearance. She realized by his demeanor that something was bothering him, and it probably had been for some time. She recognized the rage in his eyes, and the weariness. The sadness. She didn't know what he'd been through, but she knew what he was feeling. Helpless. She choked out an apology.

"Nevermind." He waved an arm and turned away from her, going back to looking at all the little buttons and switches on the circular console. "Why do you think you're here, Autumn? In my time machine?"

"I never told you my name..."

"Just answer the question."

"Sorry. I don't know. Something to do with the aliens?"

"Everything to do with the aliens." Without turning around, The Doctor gestured for her to come forward. He hit a switch that caused a large monitor to appear in front of them, sort of like a huge television screen. The image upon it was bleary and pixellated at first, but after a moment it became clear what it was: The Earth. Beautiful, colorful Earth. Home. "See this here?"

"Yeah."

"Looks normal, right?"

"Yeah."

"It's not. Look here, under the picture, at this readout. See those little white numbers, the ones that keep changing?" The Doctor looked to see if she was paying attention, and he continued speaking only after she nodded. "Those numbers are counting down, Autumn. They're set to track all of the human beings on Earth, yet they're counting down. Why is that, do you think?"

"I-I don't know." (For the record, she did know.) "Perhaps the counter is malfunctioning? Or the screen is broken?" Autumn bit her lip.

"No. Don't be daft, Autumn, you know why those numbers are counting down! You're smart, that's why I picked you! Now, why are they counting down?"

"But I'm not smart, Doctor. Quite the opposite, actually. I've always been known for being a scatterbrain, and also really gullible. And what do you mean by 'picked me'? Doctor, what does that mean?"

By now he had gone around to the other side of the console. He was pushing buttons, pulling levers, and making quite the racket. "The humans are dying! Every last one of them, being wiped out. It's the War of the Worlds part two, except this time you pathetic creatures didn't even stand a chance. I'm not going to stand for it. I'm breaking all of the rules, but I won't have it. Do you understand me?!" The strange whirring and grating noise was back again, but Autumn was too busy backing toward to the door to comment on it. By now she knew what was going on, and she knew what she had to do.

"Doctor..." She said quietly, "you saved me. Out of all the people in the world, you saved _me._ You took me away before I could be killed by the Martians, but you weren't supposed to save anyone, were you? The Earth being taken over, everyone dying- that was a fixed point in time, and you changed it."

He said nothing, but she knew she was right. And though Autumn didn't know _him_, she knew what happened when you took away something that somebody loved. She knew he wasn't going to just give up the fight. She took a deep breath.

It should be pointed out that Autumn Angela Dever was rightly, properly scared.

"You said we're airborne, right?"

The Doctor's eyes grew wide and he ran to the door faster than his legs were meant to carry him, because by the time he reached it they had gotten out from underneath him and caused him to fall right to the floor. "Autumn, no!"

But it was too late.

The girl from London was lost among the stars.


End file.
